Biography
Angel Wagenstein (1922–2023) was a Bulgarian-Jewish filmmaker, novelist, playwright, civic and political activist, and esteemed intellectual. During World War II, he was imprisoned in a labor camp for Jews. He escaped and joined an anti-fascist group but was soon captured and sentenced to death. Due to a delayed execution, he survived. Wagenstein graduated in film screenwriting from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow, earning diploma number one, and worked as a screenwriter for Bulgarian Cinematography and the DEFA film studio. He wrote over 50 screenplays for feature films, documentaries, cartoons, and theater plays. His film "Alarm" was the first Bulgarian film to receive an international award, winning at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 1951. The film "Stars," directed by Konrad Wolf and scripted by Wagenstein, created a sensation at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, earning the Special Jury Prize. As the first major influential film about the Holocaust, it was distributed in 72 countries. He continued his work with DEFA, including the adaptation of Lion Feuchtwanger's "Goya – or the Hard Way to Enlightenment" (1971), also directed by Wolf, which portrayed the horrors of Stalinist ideology reflected through the Inquisition. Wagenstein wrote and directed the first ARD-commissioned film about the Vietnam War. During the Prague Spring, he filmed "Aesop" (1970) in Prague, considered by authorities as an allegory of the contemporaneous events, leading to his persecution. He served as a jury member at the 30th Berlin International Film Festival. Recognized as one of Bulgaria's foremost intellectuals, Wagenstein was invited to a notable 1981 breakfast in Sofia, hosted by French President François Mitterrand, with 12 Bulgarian dissidents. Despite his communist beliefs, he opposed the regime and advocated for democracy. From 1990 to 1991, he was a member of the Great National Assembly that adopted Bulgaria's Constitution. He began writing novels at age 75. Wagenstein's characters resemble trees bending and twisting in history's storms—damaged but unbroken.
